Best advice for weighted articulated flies…..

[Jearley]

Ok, fly line is a basic Scientific Anglers Aircel WF8F. The leader lengths are 3 feet of 25lb, 18” of 20lb, 18” of 15lb and 3 feet of 12lb. Should I run a heavier butt section and only taper to 20lb? Or no taper at all? It’s probably all wrong.

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Ok, fly line is a basic Scientific Anglers Aircel WF8F. The leader lengths are 3 feet of 25lb, 18” of 20lb, 18” of 15lb and 3 feet of 12lb. Should I run a heavier butt section and only taper to 20lb? Or no taper at all? It’s probably all wrong.

Jearley,

See if you can find a copy of Bruce Richard's book on flylines. Not only is it a great insight into lines, but I found the section on front tapers to translate well into understanding leaders.

Or, you could just fall back to the old 60:20:20 general formula for butt:taper:tippet and adjust from there.

But be aware that I have been informed that it is too simplistic as it does not require calculus nor does it take into consideration linear mass density.

But... shhhhh! Please don't tell my flies as they turn over very well.

[Jearley]

That book is hard to find! I’ve been told before that it is an excellent read though. At the very least I think I will be going with the “60-20-20” leader formula. Sounds reasonable to me. Out of curiosity, how heavy of a leader would you be using on an 8 weight from butt section to tippet. I know Paul is right on not being worried about fish being line shy on throwing monster streamers. Ha, I’m definitely out of my element with the big stuff! And thanks for all the input. I appreciate it.

[Paul Arden]

Personally, and I know there will be differences in approach here, but 16-20lb would not be out of place and I would knock back to around 10’ leader for this. I don’t like 60/20/20 and prefer 60/40 (60 could be tapered). Nowadays I twist…



Somewhere in this video around the middle I make up a twisted leader. I used to use 80lbs/40lbs. 80lbs is really up there, even for tropical lines but it turned over well enough and better than straight through 40. But the twisted leaders turn over far better and don’t have the same sort of tip ring memory. Only problem is it means going loop to loop, but I need to do that here anyway.

Here I use 40lb but that’s because of Snags and the need to halt fish sometimes with a straight pull, or indeed try to unpick them when they beat me. SA Floating 8WT flylines pop at around 35lbs. Sinking 8WTs around 22lbs. You definitely don’t want the flyline to be the weak link!

But that’s all on the upper end. With what you have I would personally either go 6ft 40lbs, 4ft 20lbs with a Slim Beauty. Or twist up 20lbs 6ft/4ft with the quadruple twist maybe a foot long.

Cheers, Paul

[Jearley]

Seems like I don’t need to be too concerned about tapering the leader much. No need to hand tie a 6 step blood knotted leader for throwing streamers. I will definitely try both the 60/20/20 and a 60/40 split. The twisted leaders I’ll get around to eventually! I gotta find more time. That is interesting about the break strength of an SA WF8F line. I always thought it would be near double that.

Side question: Does the twisted leaders hold up better to the toothy critters like snakeheads? I’ve read a lot about using a similar technique with heavy braided line for bait casters to prevent being bitten off, possibly better than wire.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback. As always, it’s much appreciated.

[Paul Arden]

No it doesn’t help with bite-offs because the last part is straight mono. What it does help with is strength and turnover. Also I can use the same leader for weeks Apparently after two months they weaken! For Giant Snakehead I need 40lb wire and they will bite clean through 80lb mono, 35lb Spectra, and sometimes even 30lb wire (about 1 in 10). Northern Snakehead that they have in the US can be landed on Spectra.

They take 5 minutes to tie and last for weeks. You actually save time in the long run

Cheers, Paul

[Flyflinger2421]

I believe the problem is your fly has taken over the cast. In other words, your line is not heavy enough! I have seen fishermen cast weighted flies using baitcasting line just like they were using a spinning rod. It worked, but not exactly fly fishing in my opinion. I built short, very heavy T10 sections on a 7 or 8 weight rod and attached them to a light weight running line so as not to overload the rod. This setup worked pretty well using 3.5 to 4" articulated bunnies for Silver (Coho) salmon in Alaska. Retrieve to within 10 or 15 feet, pick up and shoot the line. You do not need to aerialize much line using this method. It has the advantage of saving rods from being damaged by the weighted flies.
I used a similar setup on Kings using a 10 weight rod. The trick is to get the line head heavy enough to take over from the weighted fly. Of course you have to have a rod that will handle the heavy head.

[Lasse Karlsson]

I believe the problem is your fly has taken over the cast. In other words, your line is not heavy enough!

How heavy should the line be?



Cheers
Lasse

[Flyflinger2421]

It appears that the person in the video is aerializing a lot of line. If he doesn't have running line behind a heavy head, for example a double taper, then he has probably overloaded the rod. I think a heavy, short head and shooting line is a much better technique for heavy, wind resistant streamers. At any rate, it works for me.

[Lasse Karlsson]

The person casting neither has alot of line aerialised nor is the rod overloaded at any point.
I agree a beefier line is the best option for casting heavy windresistant flies. Second line I used in the clip was a switch skagit head. But that was not the question

Cheers
Lasse